Newly Enchanted
by Rune the Recalcitrant
Summary: The intended best night of Ella's life has taken a disastrous turn. She is cursed, alone and on the run, her life in the hands of a roughshod stranger and her heart tumbled in to confusion. But sinister things start happenin, and Ella starts to realise that more may be at stake than her personal happiness, as she and her guide uncover a plot that could disenchant her world forever.
1. Found and Fled

**Hello everyone! This is the revised – and hopefully improved – version of** _ **What If.**_ **Chapters will be updated weekly. Enjoy!**

' _Ella!' Hattie shrieked._

 _Char gasped, 'Ella?'_

I broke away from him and ran, stumbling down the palace steps, through the wrought iron gates and into the darkness. _How can I have done this again?_ I berated myself in a panic. I had endangered Kyrria, and Char, _again!_ I ran faster, ignoring my slowly burning lungs and legs. Beyond the sound of my panting, I thought I could hear Hattie and Char – it sounded like Char had, for once, abandoned his princely manners and snapped angrily at her. Understandable, in my opinion.

My ball gown was burdening me. As I was running I tore at it, and it eventually fell off me, leaving only my simple cotton shift underneath. I had no time to mourn the loss of the beautiful garment. I had problems of my own.

Unburdened by my dress, I made it out of the gates, but could hear rapid footsteps behind me. I was being chased.

Char was much more athletic than I was, and he would probably catch me in a moment. I changed direction, running for the woods. I knew my way round them, and it was the perfect way to lose him, the part of me desperate to be caught warring with my nobler side.

My morality won, and I made a break for the trees, but could hear him coming closer, shouting my name. Afraid my resolve would break, I didn't turn to look at him, even when he was less than ten feet away. I made it inside the cover of the pines, knowing I couldn't outrun him now. I could feel his breath on the back of my neck, and pushed my protesting legs harder.

A hand seized my wrist, jerking me to a stop with a yelp so fiercely that I would have fallen to the ground if Char hadn't caught me and held me against him. I looked away, striving pointlessly to break free. We were like that for seconds, or minutes, or hours until I gradually stopped struggling and went still in his warm arms as he gathered me closer to his chest.

'Ella?' he whispered at last. I said nothing. 'Ella, talk to me, please.' An order. It was pointless fighting.

'Hello, Char.' I murmured, my face still turned away – though at this closeness the only thing I could do was rest my cheek against his heartbeat. One arm cautiously released my waist, raised to my chin and turned my face to look at him. I stared into his face – how could I give him up again? He didn't speak for a few minutes. Maybe he had nothing to say. Then,

'Why were you at the ball?'

Ah, questions, questions. As we could neither get married nor be friends without hurting him in some way, dishonesty was really the only policy available to me. I racked my brains for a suitable excuse. I settled on the simplest one.

'I wanted to see you.'

'Why?'

'We're friends." I said lamely. "Aren't we?' I couldn't help asking. _Were_ we still friends? His expression was unreadable.

'Did my letter reach you?' He asked abruptly, his face suddenly hard, quite unlike him.

'I'm sorry?' I played for time.

'My, ah, latest letter, did it get to you?' It looked as though he was blushing, and my heart went out to him, so flustered and ill at ease.

'Erm, the latest one?' I asked, though it hurt.

'You ... you _didn't_ get it?' His eyes widened, and dropped other arm seemingly unconsciously. I felt cold without him close.

'I didn't get anything unusual,' I lied through my teeth.

'Oh . . .' He trailed off, lost for words. I realized that, if I was going to pull this off, I was going to have to act more like me.

'Why? What did you send? Was it something important?' I asked, my words sounding desperate, even to myself. He just looked at me, unable to frame a comprehensible sentence. Eventually he pulled himself together, taking a few deep breaths and studied his boots. He opened his mouth to speak.

That was when I took my chance. I bolted, hurtling myself into the forest so quickly that I could hide before Char caught up with me. I was concealed in a hollowed out log, my head and feet tucked in as far as they could go, but I could still see out of a tear in the rotting wood. Char ran past me, spinning around in circles, his hand pulling at his hair.

'Ella, come back!' he cried, his longing voice echoing through the forest. ' _Ella!'_

After a few minutes, his fruitless search carried him out of earshot, but I waited longer still before I cautiously wriggled out of my log and ran. I reached the house, but stopped, just undercover of the trees that bordered it. I could see them.

Char and three of his knights were at the house. How was I supposed to pack now? After all, if there was anything I was sure of, it was that I _did_ need to pack. I couldn't stay here. I'd thought about it, while in the log (a surprisingly good ruminating aid). I would try to find Areida, and hopefully she would help me get along until I could find my own work. Once I was earning, I could tuck myself away in a quiet cottage, away from anyone I could hurt. I'd have a cow that gave me milk, a few chickens to give me eggs, and I'd grow my own vegetables. I smiled bitterly to myself, and settled down, cross-legged in the grass, to wait for them to leave.

Most left a few hours later, but I didn't see Char leave and two knights remained out in the garden; Aubrey and Bertram. As far as I could tell, Stephan and Char were still at the house.

When it was about three in the morning, Audrey and Bertram headed off and I knew it was about time to make my move. I snuck in through the back door, and let myself in to the servant's quarters. When I arrived at my room's corridor, I stopped dead. Char was _right outside the room!_ Asleep, thank goodness. I couldn't have gotten in to my room without waking him up, as he was leaning against the door. But, most unusually and fortuitously, I had one last trick up my sleeve.

My room was connected to Nancy's next door by a cupboard in the corner of her room. I had discovered this when Mum Olga had insisted, to Hattie's delight, that I clean and tidy all the servants' rooms. I had opened the cupboard to stash some of Nancy's (considerable) mess, and in doing so, had accidentally knocked out one of the wide, rotting boards at the back. I had propped it up again, but it would be almost _easy_ to enter in that way – the hole was big enough to fit me, just about.

I quietly let myself into Nancy's room, taking care not to wake her, though the care probably wasn't needed as she was snoring so loudly that it would have taken an ogre to wake her. I crept towards the cupboard and opened it, wincing at every creak it made. Sneaking inside, I removed the loose board and crawled into my room. I grabbed my leather satchel and crammed clean clothes, my fairy-made book, ink, paper and quill pen into it.

I also packed my boots, removing my slippers; I didn't notice until I took them off that they had rubbed my skin raw while I was running. I slipped out of Nancy's room and crept over Char, hesitating. Then, after a moment of deliberation, I placed the slippers next to him and left.

I knew when Char woke up. I was just out of the gardens when a yell sounded out from the house. I brushed a few tears out of my eyes, and ran.

 **Thanks for reading! Please review; next chapter up same time next week.**

 **Rune x**


	2. The Flight

**Ella's troubles continue! Sorry it's a day late. I had an unexpected rush of Welsh essays to write.**

It took about four hours of intermittent walking and running before I was utterly exhausted and had to stop or risk my legs giving up under me. I staggered, panting but white-faced to a large, mottled oak tree. I finally gave into the moment of bliss as I fell backwards against it and slid in between two enormous curved roots, which may as well have been duck down pillows. In my exhaustion it felt like Nature herself was holding me close, and I fell asleep almost immediately.

My dreams were clouded and troubled, haunted by images of Char's face, then Hattie's and Olives and Father's and Mother's and Mandy's and Mum Olga's until I woke, every part of me aching, wishing no more than to never move from this spot again. I lay back and stared at the rosy morning sky, my back resting against the tree. Everything around me, including myself was soaked in dew; I'd been that tired I just hadn't noticed. I clambered out from between the roots and stretched, but just as soon wished I hadn't. My legs were burning as viciously as if someone had held a torch to them, and the rest of me wasn't much better. I huffed out a sigh and, after looking around carefully but redundantly, changed into a dry and more practical dress, stuffing the wet one into my pack all the same. It would probably dampen whatever else was in there, but I could hardly carrying it over my arm as I ran. I tentatively took my first few steps. Oh, my god, it was like walking on nails! I gritted my teeth, and headed on, trying my best to ignore my aching legs.

After about forty minutes of agonisingly slow progress, my legs were easing up slightly. As I leaned against a tree for a few moments, an idea struck me.

I dug out my magic book from beneath my damp dress, and flipped straight to a picture of Mandy. She looked as though she were arguing with someone turned away from me, but I'd know that tawny head anywhere. The look on her face was sympathetic, but firm and perhaps a little exasperated. I soaked up every last detail of the picture. They were in the kitchen; Mandy's fingers were white with flour, and I could see a half-kneaded lump of bread dough on the surface behind her. One of Char's hands was running through his hair, and the set of his shoulders was tense and angry. Mandy's eyes were ringed in grey and purple, like she had barely slept.

Well, I thought dryly, if that was what _she_ looked like, what kind of a monster would I look? Something caught my eye from the corner of the picture, in Char's hand. It was a pair of glass slippers. I snapped the book shut on my humiliation, but regretted it in the same moment. I opened it again, hoping to see the same picture, but instead came face to face with a lot of neat, rounded writing. Char's journal!

I hesitated, my finger on the first line of text. Although I had read Char's diary before, reading it now felt a bit … wrong. As though I had no right to see what was in it any more. But however immoral the idea seemed, it was also irresistible. I wanted – needed – to see what he felt. To see whether he hated me yet. Whether he was trying to find me, or whether he would do the right thing for himself and Kyrria, and let me go. I teetered for a few minutes on the edge of giving in, then threw sanity to the wind and read it.

 _I have had the most insane evening of my life! It turns out that Lela, the only friend I had at the ball, was actually Ella wearing a mask. Why? I wouldn't even have found out, had not her idiotic (harsh, maybe) step sister snatched off her mask. And she ran. Why did she run? I could see that she wasn't married – she had no ring, and her dress, although fine, was hardly expensive looking, which wouldn't correspond to being married to a wealthy man._

 _When she ran, I thought at first it was to get out of earshot of Hattie, so I tried to run after her. Hattie, tried to stop me! I am truly ashamed (though not very much) to say that I saw red. I called her a rather un-prince-like name and eventually got free. But Ella never stopped running. She was running from… from_ me. _I caught her. I asked her why she was at the ball, and she said she'd wanted to see me. But it still posed the same question. Why would she run? Then she said she'd never gotten my letter. More than anything else, that shocked me – whose hands had it fallen into? That could explain everything. If my letter had fallen into jealous hands (naming no names, Hattie) that could explain the note I had received._

 _As I was silent and thinking, she ran again. I could have found her, but I didn't try too hard wasn't expecting it. I lost her. She didn't want to be found. I just don't understand – what can I have said, what can I have done that made her act like this? I need answers, it's time I asked her to give them to me. I am outside her room at the moment, waiting for her to return. I mustn't fall asleep. But even if I did, she couldn't get in without waking me up, as I am leaning against the door._

The entry ended there. I shut the book again, heart wrenching at the tangible confusion and hurt almost leaking out of the page like a fragrance. Maybe Mandy would write to me, later. I imagined that she would be very busy, what with my abrupt disappearance and whatnot. I wondered what the argument had been about.

I stood up straight again, once more reminded of the pain in my legs. I had never done _anything_ this demanding on my body before without food or water. I walked on again, this time not stopping where I would have stopped before, my sight blurring with tears My legs were soon killing me, yet I continued on my way, eventually losing track of where I was, losing track of the hours, losing track of everything aside from the flaring in my legs every time I took a step. Yet I kept taking them. I walked on, and on, and _on._ Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew I was going to pass out, but it was as if someone had ordered me to continue.

I _had_ to continue, I thought desperately. My vision was blackening, there was nothing I could do but stagger onwards. I heard a voice. Maybe it was in my head. Oh, wonderful, I thought, too far gone to be sarcastic. I was now delusional; nice change. The rough twig strewn ground rushed up through the darkness to meet me, and the last thing I was conscious of were hands grabbing my shoulders and pulling me forward.

 **Thanks for reading,**

 **Rune x**


	3. Enter Emlyn

**Chapter 3 is up! Got a fair question from a reviewer, noting that the editing is hardly strenuous. Fair dos, but I'll admit I'm keener to edit the middle than the beginning, which is basically just exposition.**

I felt like I was lying on a cloud going down a whirlpool. Everything felt like it was spinning around me; the very darkness that encompassed me was whirling swiftly and silently. If I'd ached before, it was nothing to how I was feeling now. I didn't hurt exactly, that wasn't it. It was worse.

I had no sense of where I began or ended – I could have been cut in half and I wouldn't have known. I was stranded in the dark with nothing but the groggy, nightmarish imaginings of what could have happened to me.

I could have _died_ , I realised in a moment of terror. Maybe this was what it felt like to be dead – stuck eternally in the spinning blackness of my own mind. _Now I wish I'd read some better books while I was alive_ , I thought somewhat hysterically. There was a buzzing noise in the background. I could hear! I clung to the sound, straining my ears until I realised it wasn't buzzing at all, but the sound of someone's voice. I then picked out words. Then sentences.

Then, finally, my brain decoded the sounds and I knew what they were saying.

"Come on, wake up, you fool." The voice could have called me the worst name under the sun, and I wouldn't have cared; I was so relieved to hear a human voice. This relief steadied me and helped to pull me out of the darkness as I heard the voice again.

"Come _on_ , if you sleep much longer you won't wake up." Definitely a human voice, that. Male, too. Then the meaning of the words hit me. I wouldn't wake up? I strained, trying to feel, trying find my eyes to open them. "That's it. Concentrate." The voice was strangely soothing, though it shouldn't have been – it sounded almost as though a bear had learned how to talk, then decided it wouldn't bother. It was a rusty, unused sort of voice.

Then I could feel the ground beneath me. It was cool, hard and pleasant. Then I felt my legs. I think I cried out; they were unbelievably sore. "There, that's good, believe it or not." The voice told me.

Then my eyes opened. I could see a strange melted kaleidoscope of greens and browns and greys. Then a figure detached himself from the meld enough for me to see him behind over me. I tried to speak to him, to ask him who he was, but my words came out garbled and alien.

"You'll just embarrass yourself trying to talk." He advised, a corner of his mouth lifting. He put his arm around my shoulders and guided me slowly into a sitting position. He then presented me with a bowl of what looked like vegetable stew from the bubbling pot on the campfire behind him, and ordered me to eat. I needed no further encouragement – I was ravenous.

When my throat felt less like the heart of a volcano, I risked a croak. "Who are you?"

"I'm Emlyn. Pleased to meet you. You are?"

"Ella, Ella of Frell." I looked at him again. He was about two years older than I – maybe eighteen. I looked around me. I was in a camp, it seemed. There was a tent-like construction to my left, and the fire beneath the pot of stew was still burning merrily.

"Should I know who you are?" He asked oddly, a smile hovering around his mouth.

"Er, no." I raised my eyebrows in question.

"Oh, well, you just seemed like you were someone well-known. Running away from the Prince of Kyrria does that to people, you know."

I gaped at him. How could he _possibly_ … "How do you…?"

He shrugged. "Just using my brain. You're obviously not prepared for this sort of life – look at you, half dead from exhaustion – but I think you did used to be in quite a bit of money, probably about a year ago. If you were a traveller, you'd know where you were going – I was tracking your blundering meanders through the forest before I caught up with you. The only other option is that you're running away, and on a split second's decision. As for the Prince of Kyrria," he smiled angelically. "You talk in your sleep."

I stared at him, open-mouthed. "That's … clever of you. I didn't realise I talked in my sleep."

"Not so much talking as rambling, I'd say. Lots of _Char_ s. For a while I thought you were just really into furniture." He cocked his head to one side curiously. "And only people close to the Prince call him that, anyway. Why do you?"

I diverted the question by attempting to light a fire under his ego. "How did you you know I was well cared for until last year?"

I could see he wanted to press his question, but the urge to show off overcame. "Your boots."

"My _boots_?"

"Mmm. They're fashionable. Quite expensive too, but last year's design. And you're dressed in, frankly, a disaster of an outfit that only servants and less wear, but it's old and too short for you; someone made you wear it, or you had to. I would hazard a guess at the first, as your bag is splattered in furniture polish for very rare wood. You're a servant, but not by birth."

I winced at the memory of scrubbing and rescrubbing Hattie's dressing table, then shook my head at Emlyn in disbelief. "How do you figure this out?"

"I stop and think, but that's beside the point. Why are you running from the Prince?"

I said nothing and Emlyn huffed.

"I'm hardly going to tell anyone," he said in a gentler tone. "What did you do? Steal something? Food, clothes, another woman's husband?"

"No!" I said indignantly.

"Well, what is it then? Tell me, go on."

Oh wonderful, an order. I tried to tell him as little as possible, but somehow it all came pouring out. I didn't – _couldn't_ – tell him about the curse, just that it would be dangerous for me to marry Char. To tell the truth, it was almost a relief to tell him. To tell _someone_.

When I had finished, Emlyn let out his breath in a _whoosh_. "That," he said. "Is some history."

"You believe me?"

"Have I any reason not to? It's clear you're keeping something quite relevant from me, but I don't need all your secrets. Just enough to trust that you're not going to stab me in my sleep."

"In your sleep?" I repeated, confused. Then I realised what he was saying. "I can come with you?"

"What else would you do, stay here and starve?"

"Oh, thank you, thank you!" I cried, as warm, glorious relief spread through me.

"Not for long, mind." He said sharply. "I'll get you to the nearest travelling inn or some such. I'm not a saint." And with that, he proceeded to pack up the campfire and tent, and before my very eyes, crammed it all into a tiny pouch, which he hung from his belt.

"How on earth did you do _that_?" Who on earth _was_ this man? "Are you a magician?"

He winked at me. "It's just a fairy trifle. Come on."

Of course, I approached, legs still burning fiercely. He helped me up onto a dappled ochre mare, and handed me my satchel and book.

"Is the lady ready?" He asked in mock respect.

I stuck my tongue out at him – in these wild surroundings, there was no reason to stand on ceremony. He chuckled, and led the horse onwards, through the trees.


End file.
